Stupak to back president if war declared

March 18, 2003|BY FRED GRAY NEWS-REVIEW STAFF WRITER

U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, speaking in Petoskey early Monday before President Bush's 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, said Bush had painted himself into a corner with tough talk and left the United States with nowhere to go.

"To a lot of us, it's a policy decision that has gone awry. It's war or nothing. It's war or lose face. And unfortunately, it's going to be a war," Stupak said in an interview with the Petoskey News-Review.

"Once the fighting starts over there, if it's tonight or tomorrow, I and every member of Congress, and I'm sure just about every American individual, will stand behind our fighting men and women."

He said disagreements on policies would be shelved temporarily.

"Let's get this thing resolved as quickly as possible and then we'll discuss them. But while we're over there fighting, we will stand with them no matter what happens," he said.

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Stupak voted against the Iraqi war resolution last October that authorized President Bush to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein refused to give up weapons of mass destruction as required by U.N. resolutions. The House voted 296-133 and the Senate 77-23 in favor of identical resolutions.

He said that for Congress to give up its power to declare war was wrong.

"They did it unilaterally, saying the president could do whatever basically he wants to do at his sole discretion. The only one who can declare war is the Congress, and we gave up that power. I voted against it (the Iraqi war resolution) and so did a number of others."

"There's no doubt that Saddam Hussein has to be dealt with," Stupak said, but he said the threat of war represented a major shift in foreign policy that had not been adequately thought through or debated in the country.

"Our policy has been turned upside down. You are going into Iraq to enforce U.N. resolutions that the U.N. is telling you they don't want you to do. It doesn't make much sense," Stupak said.

"We're striking out of fear that something may happen. We should not sit back and wait for something to happen. But before you go to invade another country, you really better have your ducks lined up in a row and I'm afraid this is not lining up right," he said.

Stupak said a war on Iraq and its aftermath will deplete the nation's resources that might otherwise go to help Americans, including veterans.

"It didn't help anything when the president promised to rebuild Iraq and make sure they have the food and medicine they need," he said.

The Congressman, who represents most of Northern Michigan and all of the Upper Peninsula in the U.S. House, said his constituents are asking why the U.S. would provide food and medicine to Iraq while cutting back on services for veterans who fought in other wars and a whole new group of veterans that would be created by a new Iraqi war.

"What I'm hearing in my district is, 'We don't have any prescription drugs back home.' We're cutting off 52,000 Medicaid recipients here in the state of Michigan. Medicare is being cut back. The president's 2004 budget which will be on the floor this week has huge cuts in the Veteran's Administration - as many as a million veterans can be turned away, all to save money," he said. "We still haven't figured out what happened in the last Gulf War. We still have the illnesses from that. But yet you're cutting back on the V.A. medical services. It doesn't make sense."

He said there are "huge problems" at home that include the economy, health care and large gaps in homeland security.

Stupak said that contrary to the administration's hopes, he believed the Iraqi people would not welcome the U.S. war effort.

"More than half the Iraqis are under 15 years old, and Saddam's been in power 25 years," he said. "All they know is Saddam Hussein and this regime. They believe him over us. He's their leader, their dictator, whatever you want to call him. And they know nothing else.

"It's like the breakup of the Soviet Union. They didn't know how to do a democracy, because they never had democracy and that's why they're still struggling.

"You're going to see that in Iraq. And when we go in there without world support, U.N. support, after it's all done, and militarily it'll be quick and pray to God very few casualties, then we're stuck there.

"If they (the United Nations) didn't join us with war, they're not going to join us in rebuilding.

"And we keep saying we're going to put a democracy in there. This is a Muslim country. You go back to the Ottoman Empire. Their form of government, they don't think democracy. And if your goal is to have democracy with free elections, and with different Muslim groups and religion there, good luck!"